Things are seriously effed up in Wisconsin

Bill Cronon — or William Cronon, as I think of him — is a Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin. A few days ago he wrote anoped in the Times critical of Gov. Walker and his push to abolish collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin. About a week before that, he wrote a blog post — the first in a new blog called Scholar as Citizen — examining just who’s behind this big anti-union push. He focused on a group called ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council).

…

Less than two days after Cronon published the blog post, the Wisconsin Republican Party filed a state open records request to gain access to Cronon’s personal emails to get a look at what communications or discussions or sources or anything else went into writing it.

That’s what we’re dealing with here. Not a high-minded debate of ideas, but a knuckle-down brawl wherein enemies are truly enemies to be eliminated at any cost*.